


I See Better From a Distance

by pancake_surprise



Series: It Takes a Village [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Avengers Family, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Everybody Lives, F/M, Families of Choice, Family, Gen, Happy Ending, Kid Loki (Marvel), Light Angst, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Slice of Life, Team as Family, Unconventional Families
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 10:03:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15265095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pancake_surprise/pseuds/pancake_surprise
Summary: Baby Loki is teething. Thor and Bruce are frazzled and exhausted. Clint is not amused. (He comes around anyway).**“Looks like I’m your uncle. Uncle Clint? Uncle Hawkeye? You know what, we can figure it out when you’re learning to talk."**





	I See Better From a Distance

**Author's Note:**

> My dearest friend ghostystarr asked how Clint would react to the news that a baby Loki had moved into the compound. This is my take on that. 
> 
> Also I tried writing in the present tense for the first time in years. Please forgive any tense mistakes that I missed or awkward sounding bits.

Clint didn’t necessarily live at the Avengers compound anymore, now he spends most of his time on the farm in Iowa. But once a month or so, barring any imminent attacks on Earth that require his attention, he makes the trip to the compound just north of New York City to sit in on that week’s meetings and catch up with the team. It is a total shock, that on this particular visit, when he walks through the halls to his room, he passes not only a room labeled ‘Banner & Odinson’ but right next to it another labeled ‘Loki’. The last he heard, that bastard is dead. So dead in fact, he died not once, but twice. The most recent at the hands of Thanos, just before he wiped out half of the universe. But it’s been a long day and Clint is more than exhausted so instead of investigating why the fuck Loki has a room at the Avengers compound, he decides to continue shuffling down to his room under the assumption it is all some sort of fatigue caused hallucination.

Come morning, Clint’s alarm sounds and he’s immediately rolling out of bed and shambling toward the kitchen with only one goal in mind: coffee. Lots and lots of coffee. Between his own room and the kitchens, he walks the same path he walked the evening before; and there, right next to the room labeled ‘Banner & Odinson’ (and when the fuck did that happen?), is the room, still labeled ‘Loki’ in childish block letters like Loki isn’t the genocidal dictator who tried to take over the world only a few a years ago. Did he slip into a parallel universe the evening before without noticing? A parallel universe where the only apparent difference being that Loki is a good guy? He would absolutely be bringing this up at the team meeting later.

As he got closer to the kitchen and the other common spaces in the compound, it is obvious that he isn’t the only one awake at this godforsaken hour. But is that... is that crying? As in a child. Crying. At the compound. Where the Avengers and, to his knowledge, no children live? Years as an assassin and spy, have him rounding the corner out of the hallway leading from the living quarters and into the communal areas with caution. But as he reaches the kitchen it becomes blatantly apparent that there is nothing to be wary of other than the pudgy black-haired baby currently wailing in a high chair. Banner and Thor are also in the kitchen. Banner, going through cabinet after cabinet, searching for something while Thor makes silly faces at the baby. From a distance, it’s clear that all Thor is accomplishing is making the kid cry even harder.

Clint clears his throat to make his presence known without startling either of them. Immediately, both of sets of eyes are trained on him.

“Banner,” Clint nods once toward the clearly frazzled man. “Thor.”

“Clint!” Banner exclaims loudly and Clint is surprised. “It’s great to see you!”

“Indeed!” Thor booms. “Come! Meet our son!”

 _Son?_ Jesus, is this a parallel universe?

Clint tries not to audibly sputter. He’s unsure of how successful he is but he walks over to Thor anyway.

“Son?”

Across from Thor, the baby in the high chair momentarily stops screaming, presumably to inspect him the newcomer in what Clint expects is a fairly normal morning for them.

“Indeed,” Thor says once he reaches them. “Loki, meet your Papa and Dada’s dear friend, Hawkeye.”

Thor isn’t finished speaking before Clint is backing up.

“What did you say?” Clint asks. He’s still walking. Every fiber of his body is screaming. Back. Back. Back. Get away. _Get AWAY._

Thor looks confused but repeats himself anyway as Clint continues to retreat back the way he came. “Come, meet our son, Loki.”

At this point, Clint is quite sure Banner picked up on what is viscerally wrong with this scenario for Clint but it’s too late. Clint flees from the kitchen and heads straight for Natasha’s room.

 

“Did you know about this?” he demands the moment she opens her door.

“What?”

His heart feels like it might pound of his chest but he does his best to explain what might have been the strangest scene he has ever inadvertently walked in on. From her frankly livid expression, he gathers that no, she had not been briefed on anything regarding the sudden appearance of a child Loki either. Natasha pulls him into her apartment and settles him on the couch. Slowly, he can feel his heart rate returning to something that might be considered normal, at which point Natasha gives his shoulder a gentle squeeze before storming out of the room.

Without the haze of a minor anxiety attack clouding his judgment, it occurs to him that there could possibly be a perfectly okay explanation for why Thor and Banner were apparently raising a child named Loki. Despite the guy’s villainous tendencies, it was always clear that Thor had a soft spot for his brother, perhaps they simply named their newly acquired child after Loki. Clint heard Loki supposedly died an honorable death by saving Thor’s life just before losing his own. Yeah, that could be it. Banner and Thor just named their child after Loki. Nothing more. Nothing less.

The door to Natasha’s room flies open and she stomps back in. The annoyed expression on her face is enough to tell Clint that nope, that baby is not just named after Loki.

“Bruce says the baby is Loki reincarnated. Apparently, that’s something that happens to Asgardians who manage to bargain their life back. But even though he’s reincarnated he supposedly isn’t the same Loki as before. Won’t even remember it.” The sour expression on her face tells Clint everything he needs to know about how she feels about the situation. “You say the word and we’re out,” Natasha continues. “Right back to Iowa. I don’t blame you if you don’t want to be around any incarnation of that bastard.”

Clint shrugs. At this point in his life, he’s defended the earth from multiple attacks from aliens all across the universe, robots, supervillains, and more. He’s seen gods walk among men, traveled between dimensions, and befriended superhumans of all kinds? Long story short. Clint Barton has seen his fair share of ridiculous shit. How difficult could it be to add reincarnation to that mix?

His head hurts. “Fuck it. I’m going back to bed. Wake me if the world starts ending again.”

 

Clint spends most of his time actively avoiding the majority of the team. Tony arrived later that first day to try to convince him of the baby’s non-evil disposition.

“If I thought for a second that baby was a potential threat to anyone of us, he wouldn’t be here. I assure you.” Tony said. Clint only glared at him until finally he backed down and left.

And on the following day, Natasha and Bruce come to his room bearing the same message.

“The old Loki, the one who invaded New York, he bargained his life back when he reached Valhalla so that he could help in the final attack against Thanos. But the price was that after victory was achieved, he would either need to return to Valhalla permanently or be reborn without a single memory of his previous life,” Bruce explains. “He isn’t evil. He’s just a baby.”

Clint swallows thickly. It’s easy for all of them to say. They weren’t the one brainwashed into nearly killing their best friend all by that bastard. Fuck he nearly brought down an entire helicarrier under Loki's freaky spell. _People died._ People died and it’s Clint’s fault. No, no, no. Loki’s fault. The bastard’s fault.

“What I said yesterday still stands,” Nat begins. “Say the word and we’ll be back in Iowa in under a couple of hours.”

Clint nods. Bruce looks pained but says nothing. Clint thinks of his own children, his youngest, Nathaniel, no longer a baby but not yet a kid at nearly three years old. His own children who crumbled to dust right before his eyes, fear etched in their faces, only months ago. He can’t stop the involuntary shudder that runs through his body.

“Give me some time. It’s a lot to wrap my head around," Clint mutters.

“Of course,” Bruce says in a rush.

“Take all the time you need. We’ll still be here,” Natasha says while folding her arms over her chest.

“Good. Okay. Well,” Clint begins. “I’m gonna go skype my kids. Hawkeye out. Or well in. Because this is my room. You guys out.”

By the time the door clicks shut, Clint is already dialing home.

 

It’s the middle of the night and there’s crying. No. Scratch that. There’s screaming. He’s awake in seconds and running. Attack? No. Baby. There’s a baby crying. Nathaniel? No, he isn’t at home. He’s in New York at the compound and Nathaniel is home safe in bed. It all hits him at once and he skids to a stop in the hallway just outside the common living room where the wailing is coming from.

Loki.

He peeks around the corner and finds a very rumpled Thor bouncing the screaming baby in his arms. Bruce is in an armchair, watching Thor pace the room. They both look worn out beyond belief. And Loki, Loki won’t stop crying. Thor switches Loki to his other hip and starts shushing gently.

“Please Loki. Your dads are tired. Look at your daddy,” he angles the baby toward Bruce. “He needs sleep, little one.”

Clint’s head is spinning. He knew Bruce and Thor were kind of a thing. He hadn’t gotten the full story yet but he knew it had something to do with a trash planet and gladiator fighting. Frankly, it hadn’t been at the top of his priorities once the balance of the universe was restored. But either way, he certainly had no idea that Bruce and Thor were at a point where they were raising a family together. Or rather, raising a reincarnated demigod. Jeez, no one told him anything.

Bruce stands and gently takes the baby from Thor’s arms. He pats Thor on the arm before Thor drops onto the nearby couch. Loki is still screaming and he’s begun flailing his little arms for good measure too.

“Sshh. Loki, it’s okay,” Bruce repeats over and over again. Clint isn’t sure it’s so much for the baby as it is for him and Thor. Clint grins, just a little, remembering how insanely tired he and Laura were after their first son was born.

Loki opens his mouth wide and lets out a wail unparalleled to the cries from even moments before. Immediately, Clint knows the problem. Before he’s even fully aware of what’s he’s doing, Clint is on his way to the kitchen. When he arrives, he can tell Bruce and Tony have gone on a rampage in there sometime before. I Baby locks of a far higher technical caliber than any of the ones he and Laura ever used were on every cabinet. Even the ones a toddler could never dream of reaching. He passes by all the cabinets in favor of digging through the freezer, searching for anything small enough but still safe for a baby. He grabs one of those freeze pops that come in the plastic tubes and pads back toward the living room.

Unsurprisingly, Loki is still screaming. Somehow, Bruce looks even more frazzled that he had two minutes earlier and Thor is groaning on the couch looking absolutely wrecked with exhaustion. Clint hesitates briefly at the threshold that connects the living room to the hallway but he quickly pushes himself past and fully into the room.

“Uh,” he says. Bruce looks over at him, too tired and too jaded to be surprised at Clint’s sudden appearance.

Clint strides across the room. He wants to look confident in his approach to the now infant demigod but he isn’t exactly sure how successful he is. When he reaches Bruce, he holds out his hands expectantly. “May I?” he asks.

Bruce ponders him for a moment before handing over Loki. Clint's surprised by how easily Bruce hands him over considering the show he put on the other day.

Clint gathers the baby in his arm, holding him like he would an infant, with Loki’s head tucked into the crook of his elbow. In the transition from Bruce to Clint, Loki briefly ceases crying but he quickly starts up again once he settles against him.

“Oh baby, I know,” Clint coos and he’s surprised by the softness in his voice. “It hurts a whole lot, doesn’t it?" Carefully Clint nudges the unopened freeze pop into Loki’s mouth. The baby is confused but then it takes less than a minute for his cries to calm down and before long he is greedily gnawing on the plastic-encased ice. “That’s better, isn’t it?” he asks and the delighted noises the baby is making in between chewing are enough to answer him.

When he looks up, Bruce is looking at him with an expression halfway between shock and utter joy. Thor just looks confused.

Clint lowers himself on the couch before speaking. “He’s teething. It hurts a whole lot when you’ve got pointy things trying to force their way through your gums.”

Bruce falls onto the chair again. “Teething,” he says. “How could we forget about teething? All the baby books mention teething happening so much younger that I forgot.” Bruce looks wrecked with guilt and Clint is brought back to when his oldest, Cooper, was a baby. The sleepless nights combined with the constant fear they were going to do something wrong was enough to put anyone on edge. Apparently, that included even a demigod and world-renowned scientist.

“Well, this baby is what Asgardian?" He pauses." No. Frost giant? If you’ve been reading regular baby books, they probably aren’t going to get the milestones totally right,” Clint says.

“How did we not think of that?” Thor says and Bruce shrugs.

Clint looks down at Loki again and gently begins swaying back and forth. Between the popsicle and the rocking, Clint figures he will be back asleep within a half-hour. When he looks back up again, it's to Bruce sitting across from him with his mouth hanging open. Thor too looks surprised.

“Look, you guys are clearly exhausted.” Bruce opens his mouth to speak but Clint cuts him off. “And don’t give me any crap. I have three kids. I _know_ you’re exhausted. And there’s nothing wrong with being dead tired when you’ve got a teething baby keeping you up all night. Why don’t you guys go get some rest? I’ve got him.”

Thor looks unsure. Bruce stands and walks toward Thor and lightly places a hand on his shoulder. He looks between Thor, Clint, and Loki for a moment before it’s clear he’s made a decision.

“Are you sure?” Bruce asks.

Clint doesn’t hesitate when he says “of course. All new parents need some help now and then.”

Bruce nods. “Come on,” he says to Thor. “I don’t think there’s anyone else in this compound more qualified to watch him for a bit.” They shuffle out of the room and then it’s just Clint and Loki.

It's been years since Clint has ever been truly surprised by a direction his life took. Even before the Avengers Initiative and everything that came after, he grew used to the complete unpredictability of life as a SHIELD agent. But here, with a tiny Loki, falling asleep in his lap, it’s difficult not to be utterly shocked by the turn of events.

This baby certainly didn’t look evil. He looks just like any of his own children did at that age. Innocent. If this really is the reincarnation of Loki and not the actual man himself, then didn’t this baby deserve the same kind of unconditional love he’d given his own children?

Bruce and Thor are his teammates. People he trusts to watch his back on and off the battlefield. People he trusted with the knowledge of his family’s existence years ago.

This baby, Loki, is no doubt going to grow up living a weird as fuck life. His entire family is made up of superheroes or superhumans. His crib, toys, and high chair are in a building which also houses a firing range, multiple physics labs, and training facilities. This kid is without a doubt going to need some semblance of a normal if he is ever going to reach adulthood without some weird psychological complex. It wouldn’t do for Clint to hold any sort of grudge against this child for anything he’d done in a past life.

With Loki finally asleep, Clint carefully removed the chewed up ice pop from the baby’s hand. “Well Loki,” and he couldn’t believe he was saying this. “Looks like I’m your uncle. Uncle Clint? Uncle Hawkeye? You know what, we can figure it out when you’re learning to talk. Either way kid, I’ve watched your parents’ backs for years, and now, I’ve got yours too.”  


End file.
